USA Today (02/20/12) Szabo, Liz
Patients with ovarian cancer and other deadly tumors will regain access to an important chemotherapy drug, Food and Drug Administration officials say. The agency has worked out a deal to temporarily import a replacement drug, called Lipodox, from an Indian company, to address a shortage of Doxil, one of 287 drugs that have been in short supply this year. The FDA announced last week that it had averted a much-feared shortage of a cancer drug called methotrexate. Preservative-free versions of that drug are used to treat children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL. Because there are no substitutes, many doctors and patients were worried about a shortage after manufacturer Ben Venue Laboratories suddenly shut down its plant last November. Kweder says the FDA was able to avert that shortage by asking other makers of generic drugs to ramp up production. Ben Venue said it will release a small amount of methotrexate from its inventory at the Ohio plant.

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